New Erotica and Romantica titles available now at Diesel eBooks

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Posted December 26, 2008 Comments(0)

If you love romances set in the winter, you can have your Heart’s Desire!

Click here to read more: Heart’s Desire

Posted December 24, 2008 Comments(0)

You can get all of the latest Harlequin releases now thanks to our new affiliate partnership with Diesel eBooks.

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Posted December 23, 2008 Comments(0)

If you are looking for a Christmas-themed romance, you might like:

Castles in the Air by Evelyn Trimborn

What could be more romantic than Christmas in Ireland?

How about a Christmas wedding?

Just click on the link to read more: Castles in the Air by Evelyn Trimborn

Posted December 22, 2008 Comments(0)

The Fire’s Center
Book 1 of The Fire of Love series
Shannon Farrell

Unemployed governess Riona Connolly is willing to do anything to save her family from starvation during the Irish Potato Famine. When she meets the handsome Dr. Lucien Woulfe, who offers her post at his clinic, it seems a dream come true.

No man has ever stimulated Riona so completely, in mind and body. Yet she knows her burning attraction to her sensual employer is forbidden in the straight-laced, class-conscious society of Victorian Dublin.

Lucien never imagined he would ever meet a woman who could share his life so perfectly. A dedicated doctor who has been wounded by love in the past, he has no time for relationships. Yet one look at Riona, and he burns with a passion which soon grows all-consuming for them both.

But as the Famine rages, and brings a deadly series of fevers with it. Riona and Lucien must walk through the fire’s center to secure their happiness before it is destroyed by the enemies aligning themselves against the unsuspecting couple, and by the vagaries of Fate.

Can their fiery love win through to a bright future, or will it too become yet another casualty of the Great Blight?

After an hour of quizzing her verbally, Lucien pronounced himself more than satisfied with her medical knowledge, and decided to give her a slide test.

“Here, you keep looking down the microscope, and I’ll hand you the slides one by one, so you can’t peek at the labels,” he suggested.

“All right,” Riona agreed, and soon began rattling off the names of the samples he handed her.

Lucien stood close bedside Riona, as if drawn there by some magnetic force. Try as he might, he couldn’t take his eyes off the tempting flesh of her arms and the shadowy curve of her breasts as they worked side by side.

Though surrounded by flowers in the study, which the maid had put there to brighten up the otherwise rather dull room, Lucien could also smell her own distinctive perfume, fresh, wholesome, and infinitely more alluring that the Parisian concoctions his female acquaintances practically bathed themselves in for formal functions.

Suddenly she held out her hand and asked, “Next one, please?”

Lucien jumped out of his reverie for a moment to hand her the glass slide, but all of a sudden he found himself grasping her fingers tightly instead.

As Riona looked up from the microscope in surprise, Lucien took a step closer to her and pulled her into his warm embrace.

Riona’s lips parted with a gasp, so that Lucien had free access to the tempting delights of her mouth, and the hungry kiss they shared soon left them wanting more.

Lucien ran his hands up and down the length of Riona’s spine, and he thanked God silently that she wore no corsets as he caressed her feminine fullness above and below.

Riona for her own part tried to remain stiff and unyielding in his torrid embrace, but the heat of his passion melted her reserve. She soon found her arms creeping around his neck, while her lips slanted across his mouth to deepen the kiss even further.

Lucien laced his fingers through Riona’s hair, scattering pins and her silk ribbon all about the room as her auburn locks tumbled down around her shoulders. He began to kiss her face and neck then, nuzzling her hair, before whispering, “Lovely, so lovely,” in her shell-like ear.

Lucien knew he ought to stop. Had to stop. But the vibrant woman he held in his arms worked on him like some powerful drug. The more he took liberties with Riona, the bolder he became. The more she matched his caresses, and the more inflamed he grew…

The Fire’s Center
Book 1 of The Fire of Love series
Shannon Farrell
Genre=Historical Romance
Setting= Victorian Ireland, Irish Potato Famine
Rating: Very sensual
Word Count=78,300 words
Price=$3.99

Read the first chapter free here: The Fire’s Center

Posted December 21, 2008 Comments(0)

Eternal Spiral Books has recently released some new titles you might be interested in:

Gluten Free Christmas Cookbook

Staying Slim During the Holidays

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Posted December 20, 2008 Comments(0)

Once the British royal family, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert and their children, were depicted around a Christmas trees in 1846, the fashion soon caght on and grew.

By the 1890s, Christmas ornaments were arriving from Germany, and Christmas tree popularity was on the rise around the U.S.

It was noted that Europeans used small trees about four feet in height, while Americans liked their Christmas trees to reach from floor to ceiling.

The early 20th century saw Americans decorating their trees mainly with homemade ornaments, while the German-American sect continued to use apples, nuts, and marzipan cookies.

Popcorn joined in after being dyed bright colors and interlaced with berries and nuts.

Eventualy, electricity brought about Christmas lights, making it possible for Christmas trees to glow for days on end, not just for a coule of hours with candles.

Soon Christmas trees began to appear in town squares across the country, and having a Christmas tree in the home became an almost essential American tradition.

Posted December 20, 2008 Comments(0)

All New Romance titles available now!

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Posted December 19, 2008 Comments(0)

It is not surprising that, like many other festive Christmas customs, the tree was adopted so late in America. To the New England Puritans, Christmas was sacred.

The pilgrims’ second governor, William Bradford, wrote that he tried hard to stamp out “pagan mockery” of the observance, penalizing any frivolity during the yuletide season, which was supposed to mark the brith of Christ.

But end of year and winter festivals were commonplace pagan practices, and it was hard to divorce the traditions which stretched back for millennia with the new Christian traditions religious leaders attempted to impose.

The influential Oliver Cromwell preached against “the heathen traditions” of Christmas carolling, decorating trees, and any joyful expression that desecrated “that sacred event.”

In 1659, the General Court of Massachusetts enacted a law making any observance of December 25 other than a church service a penal offense. People were fined for hanging decorations such as holly and mistletoe, another plant most sacred to the druids.

This  stern solemnity continued until the 19th century, when the influx of German and Irish immigrants undermined the Puritan legacy.

In addition, in 1846, the popular royals, Queen Victoria of England and her Germanic husband,  Prince Albert, were sketched in the Illustrated London News standing with their children around a Christmas tree.

Unlike the previous royal family, Victoria was very popular with her subjects, and what was done at court immediately became fashionable—not only in Britain, but with fashion-conscious East Coast American Society.

The Christmas tree had finally arrived as an American tradition.

Posted December 19, 2008 Comments(0)

In Northern Europe, the mysterious Druids (those who possessed ‘oak-knowledge,’ or  the wisdom of the trees), celebrated with evergeens and holy.  The priests of the ancient Celts, also decorated their temples with evergreen boughs as a symbol of everlasting life.

The Vikings in Scandinavia thought that evergreens were the special plant of the sun god, Balder.

Germany is credited with starting the Christmas tree tradition as we now know it in the 16th century, when devout Christians brought decorated trees into their homes.

Some built Christmas pyramids of wood and decorated them with evergreens and candles if wood was scarce. It is a widely held belief that Martin Luther, the 16th-century Protestant reformer, first added lighted candles to a tree.

Walking toward his home one winter evening, composing a sermon, he was awed by the brilliance of stars twinkling amidst a forest of evergreens. To recapture the scene for his family, he erected a tree in the main room and wired its branches with lighted candles.

Most 19th-century Americans found Christmas trees an oddity. The first record of one being on display was in the 1830s by the German settlers of Pennsylvania, although trees had been a tradition in many German homes much earlier.

The Pennsylvania German settlements had community trees as early as 1747. But, as late as the 1840s, Christmas trees were seen as pagan symbols and not accepted by most Americans.

Posted December 18, 2008 Comments(0)